Learning about Local Climate Change Through Visual Representations and Reflections during Middle School Field Trips

• In Event: Renewing Informal Climate Change Education Through Place-Based Pedagogies

Abstract

Objectives & Background
Promoting climate change education is a national priority in STEM education in the US (e.g., NSF, 2022). Informal learning experiences hold enormous potential to enhance learners’ science interest and understandings (NRC, 2009), making them an ideal context to introduce students to climate change issues. Visual representations (e.g., data charts, maps, graphs) often are used to illustrate scientific patterns (Author & Author, 2008), and oral reflections can encourage students to explain, evaluate, and consolidate information (Author et al., 2019). We examine how combining opportunities to engage with scientific visual representations with video reflections may support middle-schoolers' learning about local climate change impacts during a 2.5-hour field trip. Specifically, we ask how students’ drawings on visual representations relate to their talk about climate, marine life, and data science practices in oral reflections. Moreover, students’ personal backgrounds (Author et al., 2021) and emotions contribute to meaning-making and science learning processes (Hufnagel & Kelly, 2017). Therefore, we also ask how students' emotional dispositions and geographical backgrounds (i.e., from coastal or non-coastal communities) relate to the content of their reflections.

Methods
492 fifth- and sixth-grade student groups (4-5 students each) from 54 schools (62% coastal) visited a climate change research institute for a field trip. On touchscreen tables, students viewed maps of changing sea surface temperatures in their state across three decades, tracing the ideal temperature of lobster habitats to understand the effects of climate change on local marine life. We coded whether students interacted with the visualizations by writing, circling, drawing, or underlining. After each activity, students recorded 30-second oral reflections about what they learned. The transcribed reflections were coded for talk about data science practices, climate, marine life, and emotions.

Results
Three multiple linear regression analyses examined how students’ drawings, emotions (presence/absence), and community backgrounds (coastal/non-coastal) related to their talk in the reflections. In the models for talk about climate, F(10, 176) = 11.1, p < .001, R2 = .380, and marine life, F(10, 176) = 6.79, p < .001, R2 = .278, there were interactions between community background and references to emotion (for climate B = -2.59, p < .001, for marine life, B = -1.64, p = .018). Referring to emotions promoted talk about climate and marine life for non-coastal students, but not for coastal students. For students’ talk about data science practices, F(6, 180) = 52.0, p < .001, R2 = .634, circling, B = 5.20, p = .038, and writing, B = 1.55, p = .015, on the maps were associated with more talk about data science.

Significance
Circling and annotating visualizations may support students’ abilities to use data to understand climate change. Students from non-coastal communities talk more about climate change and marine life when they make emotional connections to data, whereas students from coastal communities talk less about these topics. We will discuss ways to help students from different backgrounds productively engage with climate change information. We will highlight additional science education opportunities and the development of learning activities for home and school.

Authors

• Lauren Christine Pagano Hush, Northwestern University

• Amanda C. Dickes, Gulf of Maine Research Institute

• Grace Ocular, Loyola University Chicago

• Danielle Rothschild, Northwestern University

• Elyse C Hertzman, Loyola University Chicago

• David H. Uttal, Northwestern University

• Catherine A. Haden, Loyola University Chicago